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LAX shooting prompts official updates on Twitter

Crisis communicators took to Twitter after at least three people, including a TSA agent, were shot in Los Angeles International Airport’s Terminal 3 on Friday morning. Local news reported that the suspect was in custody.

The official LAX account confirmed that in a tweet sent around 10:50 a.m. local time:

The managers of the airport’s account focused primarily on tweeting information about air traffic and keeping travelers away from the area where the shooting occurred. The first tweet about the shooting went out just after 9:30 a.m.:

There is an incident underway at LAX. Law enforcement is on scene. More information to follow.

Reporters on Twitter were largely left to quash misinformation on their own. When a parody account erroneously reported that former NSA chief Michael Hayden was one of the victims of the shooting, it led to several exchanges such as this one:

So just to be clear, Reuters and AP didn't say Hayden had been shot, but the Globe story had that info with Reuters/AP byline on it